


The worst are filled with passionate intensity

by iniquiticity



Series: a heart made of wood [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ironflint, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Prison, Blood, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Murder, Nefarious Relationship Dynamics, Pretentious Literature Use, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 18:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10224857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/pseuds/iniquiticity
Summary: A prison gang was not so much different from the corporate bureaucracy he had already conquered.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who follow me on tumblr will be familiar with "prison Ironflint," which is what this is, although perhaps not exclusively canon. For those of you who don't: there's an AU-ish scenario in this series in which Alex gets on SSRIs, goes to therapy and gets an emotional support pit bull and lives nominally happy ever after. Washington goes to prison for white collar crimes and becomes a gang leader.
> 
> I have made zero effort to make this a realistic prison, sorry. Also, this is a bad story about violent people in prison doing violent things so mind the tags & moderate yourself accordingly.

Oftentimes, in his waiting, Washington came back to the same question: what person was so short-sighted as to fill a prison library with books about political philosophy? He wondered what it must have been like to be the person who failed to see the obvious issue regarding letting an abused, mistreated population, all-but-abandoned by the state and with little to lose, get their collective hands on _The Communist Manifesto._ Had Washington run a prison - and admittedly it seemed like a very good business, merely potentially prone to government oversight in the case of a left-leaning government - there would have been little he was more interested in overseeing than the library. He would make sure each and every book was disheartening and thoughtless. Beach reading, maybe. Ten thousand bad romances about women suffering unhappy marriages and men trapped by their terrible teaching jobs, and such related drivel.

The prison library which brought this question to his mind was filled with books of every conceivable genre, all only matched together in their state of terrible disrepair. There were cookbooks, which seemed almost cruel given the prison food, and trade paperbacks, and history, and of course, in a great failing to keep a population oppressed and in the dark - a good wall of Marx, Lenin, and every other person you would never want a person crushed by capitalism to encounter. 

Washington had read most of the books in the library, despite the predictability of the romances and the trite, repeated cliches of the science-fiction. One could only do so many push-ups, and study so many basketball games, and take so many walks around an-eternity-ago green field, before they required a book. He was again reacquainted with the causes of WWI, and the history of the tulip, and political drama attached to the space race. 

That all aside, the library served a two-fold purpose only distantly related to the books. 

First, many of the prison population thought books were harmless, and were completely uninterested in anything made of wood pulp with ink on it (likely why some people thought Marx was a sensible thing to show to prisoners), and thought the idea that a person would like to read was at best peculiar and worse a horrible defect. A person who enjoyed to read was, in crude prison parlance, dickless. He and a few other inmates were more interested in books than basketball, but they composed only a small minority of the population, and were almost entirely unbothered unless there was some other, more problematic part of their personality that someone disliked. In prison, he could not cut his suit to look smaller, and could not donate to charity, and could not create scholarships or hire transgender people, so he needed an alternative to seem harmless and unthreatening: reading books. 

It was a magnificent irony, really. He had cleared through most of the library, felt better informed than ever, and if the guards thought him invisible and the other prisoners thought of him as ‘a dickless nerd,’ that at present a perk.

Certainly 'dickless nerd' had not been the worst thing anyone had ever called him, and if it made him invisible it was more than worth it. 

Secondly, it was good to have a place to be attached to that wasn’t one’s home. A base of operations, so to speak. If anyone wanted him, they would always know where to find him. A location was required in lieu of a cell phone. Not only did he need a place to be, but it was of grand importance to be assumed you were always in that place. All it required was one dismissive, underpaid guard to say _oh, he was probably in the library_ , to make the whole plan work, to have camera footage go unwatched and schemes carried out. 

As a result he became intimately familiar with the pitiful collection, a pinky finger of Knox’s and barely entertaining him for a few months, let alone the six years that loomed in front of him.

Like most things in the land of the free and the home of the brave, racism went well with white collar crime. Insider trading criminals - the crime being laughable regardless - usually spent their time in cushy white-collar prisons, and two years at max. But no, here he was, triple that and surrounded by these disgusting murderers and their gangs. 

But. 

There were advantages if he was patient, and careful with his opportunities when they arose, and took the right steps. There were catastrophic outcomes, naturally, if his attempts were to fail. But the benefits of a possible success could be spectacular. He could find an almost limitless number of possibilities for the unique and extraordinary resources a prison might offer. He had spent more than six years building other sources and networks - there was no reason to read the same bad romance novels over and over, when he could exit in six years with huge expansions in (heh) hiring. No one disliked a leader who created jobs. 

And, if he had been pressed, he would have admitted he was enjoying flexing old muscles. If nothing else, it was a better source of entertainment than the books. 

At present he was flipping through a terribly battered and much-maligned copy of _All Quiet on The Western Front_. He preferred to sit near the door, against the wall. This put him out in the open, as the guards liked it, but also let him become just another part of the wall for everyone else. Plus, it meant that you could only see him if you walked into the little library and turned around. 

He was waiting. There was more waiting in the beginnings of these kinds of strategies than there was at the end. The ruthless atmosphere meant that one could not seem threatening until they were able to fend off whoever or whatever they threatened, and he was far from that point. So for now there was mostly reading in the library and taking walks and idly answering questions from people who wanted to talk to him, and all his plans, grand as they were in large scale, needed to be quite small. A place like this required waiting. There were seeds to be planted, that would grow on their own in the backs of various minds. Books placed in specific hands and waiting for that moment their planned reader picked them up out of boredom. Old favors he would need later. Little disputes between third parties that he would bring up when it was required. 

For actions that actually needed to be taken now, you needed secret and unusual allies. Washington had had his eye on a few other library-curious prisoners, and was even thinking about starting the process of making a person into his asset. 

But then, almost out of nowhere, had appeared a man as poorly-fitted to this dehumanizing place he was. In many ways they were quite different. The man was a foreign national, placed here due to some political machination by a private enemy. Where Washington was deliberate, he was rash. Where Washington knew the shadows, the man preferred the spotlight. Washington preferred a persona that was quiet and stern, and yet his new friend was pure electricity, good-natured and laughing and vicious at all at once. 

The guards had picked up his few belongings one day a few weeks ago and explained without room for questions he was being transferred to another bunk. It was a frustrating setback; he liked the current bunk, and liked that his bunkmate was neither in a gang nor snored. But he was not yet prepared to fight back. 

One day one, his new bunkmate was watching him far too intently to have not been involved in these proceedings. At that point he had been deeply concerned - it was too early for him to put up any sort of fight against anyone. But the man (well, really, boy, for he was likely not any older than twenty five) hadn’t said anything to him, just rolled back over on his bed and faked sleeping. 

At night the boy woke him up by sitting on the edge of his bed and watching him, lit eerily by a flashlight. 

The boy’s name was Gilbert, but he preferred Lafayette. He was French, and had been imprisoned in his hellhole by a corporate enemy. He had said, that night, he was quite familiar with George Washington. 

A man, he said, to be admired. 

A man worth putting one’s weight behind, even. 

It was very dangerous, of course, to be trusting mysterious, slightly psychotic foreigners who promised to support you and moved you into their bunk. Lafayette being on his side would save him an enormous amount of time and energy, though. Even better, Lafayette was all sorts of things that could be very much useful in a secret ally: he was known, and could easily be blamed; there was an aggressiveness to him that made people skittish around him; he seem to utterly lack fear, despite that Washington had seen him once pick a bit of a razor blade out of his food; lastly, and most interestingly, and most usefully, and most bafflingly - he made an insane effort to appear to adore Washington in secret, or he actually truly did adore Washington in secret. They pretended distance in public spaces, so the act, if it was one, was obviously only meant for him. 

He had given Lafayette tests. Small things, that wouldn’t compromise his usefulness, but could still put him in danger. Talk to this person, create a distraction between these people, get me this, deliver that. Lafayette accomplished them with more subtlety than Washington had expected. _Here you are,_ Lafayette would say, palming the cigarettes or knife from his baggy uniform. Or they would eat lunch separately, and Washington would catch the beginnings of a fight breaking out, and Lafayette would wink at him, after they’d made eye contact. It was the sort of effort made only by someone who was either extremely intent on murdering him, or actually did want to be part of his presently non-existent empire. 

Murdering him did not actually require pretend-worship. Furthermore, aside from his attention, there was something else about him that Lafayette clearly wanted. 

One last gift by Hamilton, he thought, almost laughing. Hamilton might’ve reformed into a perfectly nice father with enough skeletons for a storage unit, but nothing they had done had been forgotten. Hamilton had taught him a lot about using another person, and furthermore the unconscious skill his defective ex-assistant possessed in spades: using his body. 

No one had ever wanted Washington like Lafayette did. Hamilton had always wanted him in his defective, imperfect way. Lafayette’s desire and devotion were a step up: obsessive, devout. Lafayette was like a zealot in his name. It was too useful to deny, even despite the risk. 

Lafayette idled, with his aura of fake-calm, in the library entrance. Washington looked up from his book only briefly, watching the man move through the short stacks of the little room, picking up books and putting them down, scanning through pages with prison-trained disinterest. Washington watched him without seeming to. 

Finally, as planned, Lafayette picked up a book at the end of the row, something suitably thick and worn. The man flipped through the pages, made a sigh of complete boredom, and then dropped the book on the table. Finally, he signed, looked through the library without seeming to see Washington, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked out again, his back folded in a perfect prison slouch. 

Washington waited one, two, three, four, five moments. His eyes flicked up to a camera in the corner that looked straight ahead, keeping the vast majority of the library in it's all-seeing eye. But despite the hinge, budget cuts meant the camera didn't move, and so Washington needed only to follow a prescribed route to give whoever watching (or not) the impression he'd gone a different way. 

Instead he swept up the book that Lafayette had dropped and opened the pages. In between two pages in the back were several bent pieces of wire. He secreted it in his sleeve and left the book on the table, moving circuitously to the exit of the library. 

The wire had been bent strategically for lock on the staff kitchen door, which was attached to the prisoner kitchen. The numbered keypad had been easy to guess with an easy bribe of cigarettes to the cooks. An army, after all, ran on it's stomach. He could hardly imagine what sort of disgusting riffraff you might gather with only promises and nothing else. They would abandon you at every possibility. They could not, after all, all be Lafayette. 

It was important to be seen places, so people thought that's where you always were. First through the main areas, where he slouched himself into invisibility, letting all the groups infight as they liked. Certainly he had plans for which ones would go first: when he was impatient he imagined strangling the white nationalists and cutting out their tattoos, and how sweet it might be to hear that they had all been suffocated in one night. And there was also something to be said for anyone who had done him certain sort of disrespect. 

He had to remember what he'd been like before he started the corporate climb. He was just there again. 

The yard, where men did pushups and played basketball and sulked like hyenas. He often thought they could have learned something from Hamilton, before he had decided to put all his skeletons in a storage unit and drop it into the ocean. They pretended to be threatening in the way his assistant had accomplished without any effort. Hamilton would have made a remarkable member of a prison gang, although he would have been murdered in his first week without a guiding hand. 

They would have made a good prison gang, he thought, suppressing a bit of the sigh. Lafayette would do, though, and there was no benefit to thinking of one's lost resources. But Lafayette was exceptionally useful and loyal in the way Hamilton could never be. Hamilton would have been a hyena or a falcon, only pretend-domesticated. Lafayette could be a pit bull, and perhaps the talons were different but jaws were jaws. 

Feeling suitably seen, he meandered back to his bunk. He selected _The Secret History of the Mongols_ from his little collection and hefted himself into the top bunk. The unforgiving place, only in name his bedroom, was little more than one desk, bunk beds, a sink and a toilet. Perhaps they had once been brushed steel, elegant like a new kitchen, but now everything was smeared with accumulated filth of being poorly taken care. Disgust, mingled with rage, threatened against his iron control. To think that he was here, in this hovel, in this slum, in this rathole, in this ghetto -- him --

He took a breath. Rage would get him nowhere. Rage would put him in solitary confinement or present his danger to others. He compressed it like carbon into diamonds.

***

 

Before he could become strong, he needed others to become weak. The plan required destabilization, which was much easier in prison than in a corporate environment. There were no emails to be reviewed, or bank transfer receipts to display, or mission statements to hide behind. All you needed to do was find the most paranoid gang member you could and say something barely worth noticing. 

He knew of breakdowns and power grabs in one gang, perfect for his exploitation. If people were given real food (in this case, from the staff cafeteria), they would need explanations to give to their superiors about how they’d gotten it. Their superiors would make up their own explanations and punish the innocent, who would resent it, and seek other protections or safety. Their superiors would then resent that their innocent underlings were not as devoted as they previously were and even more harshly punish behavior they thought was unusual. 

In a corporation, this usually ended with being poached by another company. In prison, Washington suspected a stabbing. Stabbed underlings did not make a good army, weakening the whole gang. Unstabbed underlings would look harder for better places to buy their allegiances. And so on, and so forth. 

Lafayette slipped into their room just before curfew. Washington glanced over at him only briefly before turning back to his book. 

“Haven’t you read that one like ten times?” Lafayette said, looking up at him. Nothing about him indicated what he had been doing with the rest of his evening, or even that he had very successfully completed another one of Washington’s errands. “You can take the other books out from the library too, you know. That can’t be the only one on your hero.” 

“It’s the oldest and most primary source on him,” Washington said, and folded the book closed, setting his bookmark in it and handing the book down to Lafayette to put on the desk. Then he shifted over on his bed, because positive reinforcement was important even for zealots, and if anything what Lafayette wanted was something he was able to provide without any additional effort. 

The younger man tied his hair back with a tie in the desk drawer and hefted himself into Washington’s bunk, then settled his nose into Washington’s breastbone. Washington looked down at him stroked his fingers across the powerful neck, listened to the satisfied purr Lafayette made at the touch. 

“Do you want me to go?” Lafayette murmured, low into his skin, “I can. I want to. We can crush them.” 

“We will,” he replied, letting his hand drift down the cheap fabric of Lafayette’s prison shirt. If it was a ploy, it was exceptionally well done, listening to Lafayette’s breathing slow, his body going slack against Washington’s, his eyes drifting shut. 

“We could now,” Lafayette said. 

“It’s not only that we crush them,” Washington said, scratching his fingers across Lafayette's scalp and listening to the shuddery breaths the gesture evoked, “You know that. We have to also avoid being murdered shortly afterwards as well. That’s why we need time. But we will. I promise you’ll get your chance.” 

“I know,” Lafayette said, “But they don’t know how great you are. What you can do. I don’t know how you can stand it.” 

Few attempts to get into his good graces had the kind of elegance and outright flattery that Lafayette mixed. The man’s worship took a little of the misery out of being trapped in his hellhole. 

“Don’t worry.” He bent his head and kissed the head of dark curls. “They’ll learn.” 

“Will I get to teach them?” 

He liked the edge of hunger in Lafayette’s voice, and rewarded him with another kiss. “I’ll make sure you do,” he said. 

Lafayette made a low rumble of approval and lifted his head. His eyes, even lulled by the late hour and the intimate touch, held the promise of violence. He grinned an unreservedly dangerous little grin, and shifted to kiss Washington’s jaw. “It’s funny,” he said, and settled again close, one hand reaching out and drawing idle fingers up and down Washington's biceps, “That we met. That I was put here to avoid meeting people like you, and you put here for additional punishment. And we’ll show everyone here how terrible it is to have us. And then next we’ll destroy everyone who made us suffer.” 

Washington chuckled. Lafayette looked up at him again, his grin shifted into a smirk. There was silence for a little while, or as silent as a prison got, with all the bad plumbing and disorganized complaining from the other cells. It was a blessing, at least, that these between-bunkmate intimacies were common enough that it wouldn’t lead to any other questions about if they were friends. 

“I think,” he said, after a while, studying the dark outline of the ceiling, illuminated by the ‘night mode’ emergency lighting they used after curfew, “That you should go soon. Maybe not tomorrow, but maybe the day after that. We don’t want our enemies to resolve their differences before we can exploit them.” 

“Yes, sir,” Lafayette murmured, half-asleep. 

“You should probably go to sleep in your own bed.” 

Lafayette rattled a very long sigh, and nodded against him, “I should.” 

The man’s warmth and weight left. He heard the cheap blankets shuffling in the bed under his, the long breaths, half-suppressed. Soft moans, French curses. A gasp. He folded his hands behind his head and stared into the darkness for a long while afterwards, formulating his schemes in silence.

****

“I’m telling you, man, I didn’t get it from anywhere!”

Out of all the things Washington despised about prison, the food had to rank near the top. Food was generous, really. He longed in unexplainable ways for baby spinach and beef tartare and freshly ground coffee. He had dreams about shumai and quinoa and fruit, thinking fondly of the crisp bite of an apple or the firm routine of peeling an orange. He knew a bit about the history and culture of food, and yes, while he despised the prison uniforms and the metal beds and the roll calls and the lack of privacy, likely the barely-edible and barely-nutritious slop that he ate for every meal probably topped the list of his regular irritations. 

He was at present choking down lunch and pretending not to listen to the debate that was going on behind him, which was likely the result of a raspberry-and-almond snack bar that had been stolen from the staff cafeteria successfully by Lafayette. 

Oh, what he would have done for a raspberry and almond snack bar. But he had plans, and strategies, and patience. To have him eating the same thing that had created suspicion in a weak gang might’ve been impossible to recover from, if discovered. After all, he could not be the one luring low-level gang members away from their paranoid superiors. 

“If it isn’t yours, then why the hell is it sitting right next to your lunch and half-eaten?” 

_Oh, Lafayette_ , Washington thought, with an edge of fondness. His man, if nothing else, did not lack style. 

“I don’t know where it came from! I went to get some god-damn water and when I came back, it was here.” 

A dangerous thing, to make moves in crowded places like the cafeteria at lunch. But some danger was required, and it was helpful to have underlings who relished the opportunity to take riskier and riskier steps for you. 

“So you’re saying that you walked away, and someone just happened to put down a half-eaten snack bar at your desk, and is now gone.”

“Look, I know it sounds ridiculous, but why the fuck would I shit you? I’m a loyal guy, I do your shit, I don’t make trouble, I know my place. Would be pretty fucking stupid for me to be getting shit like this from other people, don’t you think? I’m trying to keep my ass attached to my legs.”

“Maybe all that shit isn’t the case.” 

Washington took another bite of lunch and resisted the urge to shake his head. There was no end to his amusement of the overlap between gang middle-managers and those who did the same work for legitimate enterprises. Narrow-thinking, easily-manipulated bureaucrats. He thought, for a moment, about writing a book about it, and set the thought to the side. 

“Why wouldn’t it be the fucking case? What could I possibly have to goddamn gain about pissing your dumb ass off?” 

“You calling my ass dumb, you dumb fucker?” 

He didn’t laugh, but he wanted to. Was there something to be said about loyalty through fear? Sure there was, and he’d certainly took advantage on certain occasions. But if other options were available, you wanted employees to stay under their own will - turn down poaching attempts, defend their employers and company, stay later than was required, feel valued. 

Mostly, gangs had a lot to work for in that aspect. Although they certainly had more difficulty in it - no prison gang could offer you 8% matching on your 401(k), sick leave, or work from home days. But he’d been thinking about ways to inspire loyalty, and he had some ideas. 

“Look, it ain’t mine, I didn’t eat it, I’m not talking to nobody, and you’re being a paranoid asshole about some fucking half-eaten bar. You got me, ok?” 

“Maybe I don’t got you.” 

“I said, you fucking got me.” 

“All I’m saying, maybe I don’t got you.” 

The boss would take the half-eaten snack bar. Their target, who had the unfortunate luck of being just useful enough to worth keeping by the gang, and not useful enough to promise they were more loyal than a snack bar, would stare after them. Cold resentment would begin to grow. The target would think that there had to be better options than this, and if his boss thought him looking for better prison ‘employment,’ than maybe he oughta go looking, to prove them right. 

There was a silence. Washington picked up his empty tray and took it back to the bussing station. He idly scanned through the cafeteria, thinking of the groups he saw in contrast to the way the groups were displayed in his head. 

He passed Lafayette, talking to a lonely, sullen-looking man at the end of one of the tables. The man was nodding along to whatever Lafayette was saying in a low voice, some of the scowl fading from his face to be replaced with a cool sort of determination. He hid the smile and went towards the library.

****

In the poaching process, it was at first important to learn or identify any possible wedges your new potential employee had with his present boss or employment. There were a number of factors in the process, and all of them delicate. What did the employee presently do at their job? What did they want to do? What did they like to do in their spare time? How did the employee feel about their coworkers and superiors? What were the employee’s benefits?

The grapevine of prison gossip equally as loud as the grapevine of business gossip. They were not difficult questions to answer, if you knew how to do so. 

Once you had the answers, it was up to you to provide the things that employee wanted. For employees, that might mean a better maternity/paternity leave process, or maybe (the illusion of) creative control of projects. More flexibility on deadlines. Less micromanaging. For the population of a prison, this came down to usually one of two things: assistance for a wife, girlfriend, kid, or parent not in prison, or difficult to find items in prison like better shoes, a cell phone, a nail file, or marijuana.

***

He was reading when he was approached. Washington took him in at a glance: the man had an averageness to him - tall, broad shoulders, black, shaved head. There was a strength to the man’s eyes that he liked, that worked against the way his glance flicked through the library, at the camera, at his book, at him. Something good to be found within this one, but it would take effort, or just the right touch. Maybe he had that time here.

“Washington?” the man said, without sitting. 

Washington tilted his head. He folded the corner of his page down and closed the book, leaning back in his chair. There was no need to become tall until he was sure that the person was a threat, and the introduction didn’t seem to imply that. It was worth pretending to be small if there was something to be gained for it. 

“Who’s asking?” he replied. 

“Armistead,” the man replied, and offered a hand to shake. That was a good sign. Washington stood and shook the hand. A strong handshake, even if the hand was itself was unimpressive, “Lafayette said you could help me.” 

They had, after all, spoken about beginning to make headway. They’d gotten good at the scene with the snack bar, ratchet tensions in the prison without being seen. Next, he needed small steps to seems strong. Not too much - just a hand here, a favor there, someone you could come to. If this was the first one, it was very important to make a good first impression. Lafayette would have had a good reason to pick this man, and whatever his request was going to be. Something Washington could solve without too much effort that might look impressive to someone else in the prison. Someone who would be impressed, but not intimidated. A person to bring to his side slowly, maybe. 

“How do you know Lafayette?” he asked, gesturing to the metal chair in front of him, as if it was his office. He made it a point to remember, and continue to remember, his actual office. The wide, dark oak desk. His paperweights and awards. The long bookshelf with his bourbon on it. The windows. 

A far cry from one of the long plastic tables in this decrepit prison library, with its ragged books and cameras and stained carpet. A flash of rage, fought, momentarily, against its borders. He tasted the heat and put the rest of it back. He had plans and goals. 

“I help him out sometimes,” Armistead said, sitting in the offered chair, “He’s a cool guy to be around.” 

The words had meanings. _I help him out._ An ally of of Lafayette’s. Cast out from another gang, maybe? Or perhaps only helping his subordinate in secret. A spy. _He’s a cool guy to be around._ A delicate thing, to compliment another man in this place where everything meant something. Not entirely unlike the business world, san reasonable accommodation. 

A person, maybe, that could be trusted. 

“I agree,” Washington said. Armistead put folded his hands in his lap and wrung them. It did, in a lot of ways, almost feel like a job interview. 

_So_ , he thought in his head, almost chuckling to himself, _why do you think you would be a valuable asset to the company?_

Instead: “What did Lafayette say I could do for you?” 

Armistead bit his lip. Washington didn’t doubt the core of some strength that he’d seen, but it at present didn’t feel like coming out. Some men only excelled in specific situations. He could manage that later. “I work in the kitchen. I mean, I get paid. But I don’t see any of the money. And I was working towards a degree. But the school won’t send me any more materials. They had some kind of -- thing -- from the government. But it was revoked.” 

Washington folded his arms over his chest and stroked his chin. He consulted the calendar in his head. There had been some recent state-level elections, though despite his questions about it, he didn’t know the results. It was more than possible a politician less interested in educating prisoners could have been elected. Fewer people usually complained when things were removed from a prison than, say, senior care. 

A favor. No guns or drugs involved. Not even a stray child or girlfriend. And not even likely that difficult, given that almost all materials for college degrees could be acquired from Amazon or a bookstore. Who could fault a prisoner for asking for books, after all? 

“I’ll see if I can have your costs covered or the materials delivered,” he said. He stood up and gathered up a paper and one of the stubby, pathetic pencils the prison took effort into making almost completely useless, and sat back down, posed. “Do you know the books you need? The class? The degree? The school?” 

“Um,” Armistead said, “Business. The school was the community school. I don’t know what it’s called. And it was like a pretty high-level class. In the track.” 

It would have to do. It would be annoying, but not all that difficult, to ask Sullivan to look into it for him. It would even take less time, and be much safer, to get Sullivan to do all the busywork, rather than sitting in front of one of the crippled-internet computers that tracked your every click. 

“It’s good you’re working forward even when you’re here,” he said, once he’d finished writing down this vaguely helpful explanation. 

Armistead’s mouth curled downwards into a frown. “This isn’t my life. I‘m not gonna be here forever and I don’t want to come back.When I’m out I need to be able to do things, be smart, look at people. Gonna need to be able to cancel out the excon somehow, hoping a business degree will do. Ain’t right that they can just stop me in the middle. I want to move forward from this, you know? Not gonna be trapped in his slave pen forever.” 

“You know,” Washington said, and he folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in the chair, “I’m glad Lafayette introduced us. You have a good head on your shoulders.” Then he waited another beat, “I don’t think it should be a problem for me to get you your books.” 

“Thanks, Washington,” Armistead fidgeted for a few moments,and then gathered himself, “Lafayette said I could owe you on it?” 

“Owing me is fine.” 

He’d need the favor anyway. Keeping Lafayette's man loyal to Lafayette was useful enough for the effort, but one said no to being able to cash in when you needed it. 

Looking satisfied, Armistead stood up and glanced around the library. 

“Wait,” Washington said, and stood quickly. Armistead blinked at him for a moment, maybe watched him as he went through a particular a shelf and pulled out a book, “If you have spare time before your other books around, read this.” 

Armistead took _One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest_ from his hand and felt it, looking at the front and the back, and brushed through the pages. Then, apparently satisfied, he tucked it under his arm.

“Thanks, man,” he said. 

“No problem,” Washington said, and gave the man a little wave when he exited.

***

Lafayette was taking a nap when he showed up that night. There was no need to keep regular hours at the prison if you didn’t mind being trapped in your bunk during the night. If you caught two meals, that was enough. Lafayette also had a small collection of (significantly less palatable) snacks he ate. He studied the man in his bunk for a while, considered the round of his shoulder and all his wild hair and every powerful muscle under the dark skin, and allowed himself a rare smile. Things went well. Lafayette seemed more his every day - or at least he could believe it more.

He hopped onto his bunk, and then heard a grunt from the body below. 

“Did Jamie talk to you?” Lafayette asked, in a sleepy voice. There was a yawn. 

“Yes,” Washington answered, and then with the ease of practice lowered himself onto Lafayette’s bed, until he was sitting on the edge of it. “How long have you known him? I know you must not have made this decision lightly. what about him made him your choice?”

Lafayette sat up and pulled the hair tie from his hair, which went wild around his face. he wiggled out from under his blanket and put his head in Washington's lap. 

Armistead - Jamie - had given him just the problem he could solve. Lafayette had once again struck just the right chord, and there were unspoken words for that kind of thing, that they had realized. Not unlike the corporate universe, unspoken rewards were vital. He knew them without asking. He could suss out the system with what he hoped seemed effortless energy. 

He drew his hands through the wild curls. Lafayette’s eyes slipped shut, mesmerized by the touch. “He’s just a guy I know I can trust,” he finally said, back to half-asleep, “He’s brought me some good information. He’s the kind of guy no one sees, you know? You need that kind of guy.” 

“That’s true,” Washington agreed, and studied Lafayette’s strong body, unflattered by the prison clothes. Lafayette would look very good in a well-cut suit, with a pocket square for a burst of color. He would wear a ring well around dark fingers. Lafayette had his explained that he was not unfamiliar with actually looking like he was worth something and not in the process of systemic dehumanization and disenfranchisement. He wouldn’t even have to teach Lafayette how to appear like a real human being. 

“He’ll be useful for you,” Lafayette added, and made a soft groan of pleasure as Washington’s short fingers scratched against his scalp, “Not as much as me. Won’t let anyone be as useful as me.” Finally the bright eyes slitted open, their gazes met, “But. Enough.” 

“It would take a lot for someone to be as useful as you.” 

“Good.”

He chuckled, and then let his fingers trail down the two-day stubble on the flat of Lafayette’s cheek. Lafayette made another noise, shifting on the bed and arching into the touch like a cat. Washington thought again about the extraordinary chance it was that such a peculiar man had fallen, in this moment quite literally, into his lap. Everything he did seemed more and more like he was as much Washington’s as he said he was. 

Things were, after all, going quite well. Armistead seemed just the sort of man that would be useful to their schemes. There were foundations that shook with the dull sense of vibrating concrete, like the quietest little symphony. You needed to give rewards in times of plenty, so that there was loyalty when you were less successful. And with Lafayette as stretched a much could in the short bed, his breath easy and rhythmic, half-asleep and presently satisfied with his reward - it certainly felt like a time of plenty. 

Even if Lafayette was as loyal as he always said, and as he always appeared, and seemed in his actions, that indicated that he was more worthy of a bonus, not less. 

“Lafayette,” he said, and let his thumb trail across those thick lips, which fell obediently open. 

“Mm?” Lafayette asked, and looked up at him, rebelliously letting his tongue flick out and catching the end of Washington’s finger. Washington suppressed the thought about how he could hardly imagine how disgusting his hands were. Even if you washed them after meals, there was likely nothing in the prison not covered in every sort of horrific bacteria you could image. 

“Come here,” he said. He shifted on Lafayette’s bed, pulling away from the man’s head in his lap, and patted his knee. 

Lafayette sat back up and studied him, the lukewarm desire in his eye turning a little hotter. He looked Washington up and down and chewed his lip in thoughtful contemplation. Washington wondered what went on inside that very interesting head, and thought about the gears so obviously churning. Perhaps he was thinking the best way to please. Perhaps he was considering some brutal attack on a person who had upset him or Washington. Perhaps he was going through the cold anger Washington thought about being here at all. It could be so many things, after all. The human mind was a limitless, fantastic thing. 

FInally, Lafayette shifted towards him, wiggling over to sit on his lap in the cramped space. 

“No,” Washington said, and then arranged them so that Lafayette’s back was to his front. He reached over for the hair-band and wrapped it in a loose circle around all that wild hair. He pressed his face into the dark curls and smelled the unpleasant shampoo the prison gave them. He trailed his fingers down Lafayette’s biceps, feeling the warmth of skin underneath coarse prison uniform. When they were like this, he was sure Lafayette could feel the calm beating of his heart. 

“I can’t look at you?” Lafayette teased, staying still besides the goosebumps that Washington felt rose on his arms. 

“Just imagine me for now,” He said into Lafayette’s curls, and let his hands draw over Lafayette’s thighs. The man trembled just a little at his touch, with the most delicious, restrained desire. Nothing like Hamilton, who’d been a whirlwind of lust. “I’m very grateful to have you with me. You’ve been an indispensible resource and ally.” 

He let his hands creep up the pants to the waistline. Lafayette’s head tipped back and rested on his shoulder, and if Washington craned his neck he could plump lips and long eyelashes.

“We’ve accomplished a lot together. Not only that, I’m always impressed by your initiative, drive, and loyalty to me as a person and as a cause. It isn’t easy to find people like you. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you and all you do for me.” 

Lafayette made a breathy noise and suppressed most of a squirm. The little he managed sent a sprawling coil of heat through Washington’s stomach as their bodies pressed close and Lafayette pressed a tender little kiss to his jaw. 

“I admire you so much,” Lafayette murmured into him, and Washington watched with some entertainment as the other man’s hands fluttered without him knowing where to put them. 

“I can’t say enough how much I appreciate that.” Here his hands slipped, with a little pressure, under the prison fabric. He felt the briefs they all wore underneath, the fabric beginning to strain. 

“Say?” Lafayette echoed, and pushed his hips into the touch. 

“I just want you to know that I notice your valuable contributions,” Washington replied, and let his hand draw across the bulge that he felt, which he was sure grew towards his touch. Another stroke, and Lafayette pushed out a breath that sounded like he was holding back more. “I”m certain that there’s a significant part of my success that’s attributable directly to you.” This time he let his hand down the powerful muscle of Lafayette’s thigh, feeling the hair there. “Since we’re succeeding, it’s important to me to give you more, when there’s more to give.” 

Lafayette’s hands found a place to be - obediently on his own knees. It was a marvelous thing to see, and to have, and to know was his, and for him. So different from Hamilton, who of course would be instantly looking to gratify himself. Instead, Lafayette let Washington do as he like, give as much as he wanted. The rush of it was unfamiliar and different and spectacular. It made him think of the spectacular future after this place. They would have dinner together. He would order for Lafayette, he thought. They would talk about work and becoming as great as possible. 

“It’s a reward enough to be a part of it,” Lafayette said, and he was breathless now, hips shifting in Washington’s lap and against his hand, making everything about him sweet and hot. It was a different kind of arousal. It had been a way with Hamilton, red-hot and furious and vicious. And even before that, he had known the mechanics of his own body. But Lafayette wiggling against him, and promising his loyalty, and being so appealing - this was new and different. 

“That’s wonderful of you to say, but I think you should be rewarded even more than whatever your participation means to you, although that you consider it an honor is very meaningful to me.” 

He finally let his hand trail into the leg of the briefs and drew his fingers across the line of Lafayette’s cock. Lafayette bit his lip, to soften the moan that spilled from him. 

“Sir,” Lafayette whispered, and shuddered against him, “Please.” 

It was like music. He slid his hand from the pant leg and pressed it under the waistband of Lafayette’s boxers, letting his palm settle against the base of the other man’s cock. It was hot in his hand, soft skin and hard with desire. 

“I’ve thought about this,” Lafayette mumbled. 

“I’m sure you have,” he responded, because he had heard plenty of Lafayette’s actions. In the small spaces, there was no place to hide something like that. 

“Have me,” he begged, soft. 

“Of course,” Washington said, and despite all the horror and misery of the place, and all the general suffering he experienced, and between the two of them all the constant, ever present press of suffocating bullshit, there was something to be gained. Some valuable little piece to be acquired. A way to grow. 

Lafayette wiggled only a little in his grasp, and made cut-off noises, breath loud in his lips. He pushed his briefs and his pants down to his thighs, giving Washington a little more space to work. He seemed to enjoy Washington’s pace, practiced and even, just on the right side of firm. That he would rejoice in it translated in this way seemed both obvious and despite it, spectacular. 

Lafayette promised himself in all sorts of ways. He promised loyalty and results and power. He matched Washington’s rhythm perfectly, never pushing further than he seemed to know Washington would want him to go. 

“Do you have a tissue?” He whispered in Lafayette’s ear, teasing his thumbnail against the head of Lafayette's cock. He felt a damp bead of precome there and kissed Lafayette’s ear. It seemed at first Lafayette might not have noticed the question, lost in the pleasure pressed upon his body. To remedy this, Washington gave him a sharp little squeeze that resulted in a quick gasp. 

“The drawer,” he said, only barely managing to lift a hand and point at their tiny dresser. 

“Get it,” Washington said. 

There was a moment where he thought Lafayette might disobey, or at least question the thing. It was a bit cruel to ask a man so close to his end to stagger across the room, even the two steps that it was, legs constrained by briefs and cock hard against his stomach. 

But he didn’t. He hissed a breath to gather himself, and then unfolded onto shaky legs to open the drawer and pull out a tissue or two. Then, without asking, he wrapped his legs around Washington’s body as he sat back down on the couch, keeping himself face forward this time so he could make eye contact. Washington admitted to himself that he had zero complaints looking at Lafayette, from the pink lips to the bright eyes and the wild hair and, at present, erection bobbing against his stomach. He’d pulled his shirt up over his head as to not stain it, and Washington hadn’t even noticed, so intent he'd been at feeling the throb of flesh under his hand and listening to the sounds of pleasure. 

He wrapped his hand back around the hot shaft of Lafayette’s cock. Lafayette pressed the tissues into his hand and then put his face into the space between Washington’s neck and shoulder. Washington felt breath hot against his skin, felt the rumble of soft moans. 

“I’m very glad we know each other,” he said. Lafayette nodded and lifted his head to look at him with eyes shining with devotion. How had he become so lucky to find his own personal zealot? What had made the universe arrange itself so favorably for him? 

“Me too,” Lafayette said, and accepted a chaste kiss. Then he pushed hips hips harder into Washington’s hand, keeping their foreheads pressed together as his gasps became sharper, and then he buried his face back into Washington’s neck and came with a suppressed groan, his body becoming wild and twitchy, trembling against him and gasping half-suppressed little gasps as Washington stroked him until he he made a deliciously terrible whine. 

Then, Lafayette reached for the bulge in his own briefs. He’d noticed it, knew the lust, felt the heat. But he also knew about rewards, and promises, and carrots, and sticks. 

He wrapped his hand around Lafayette’s wrist and held him, with as little force as he needed. Lafayette looked up at him, cheeks tinged with red, bottom lip swollen from where he’d been biting it. Lafayette’s eyes were marvelous, and the heat he’d been ignoring surged within him. For a moment he almost let go, and then he didn’t. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, and he let go, and Lafayette pulled his hand away with his characteristic obedience. That as much as anything sent a little thrill through his stomach. “When we’re doing better, I’ll let you.” 

“I’ll earn it,” Lafayette said, and even post-orgasm there was all the intensity and his desperation to please. 

“I know you will,” Washington said, and pulled that mouth close for a deep kiss.

***

There would be more waiting, now, but he was patient. He had spoken to Armistead again about the books that he needed, and with Sullivan through the glass about it. Sullivan talked about the company and his wife and some other things, and Washington listened because he found it surprisingly grounding to be reminded about the reality outside his present hell. He could see how it would be easy to never leave the prison mentality, if you didn't have someone, or a group of someones, to remind you of a place where stock mattered, and work was different, and you wore a decent suit with a nice watch, and there was real food. Sullivan promised to get him the books.

A day or two later he was eating lunch and eavesdropping and thinking about maybe beginning to write some memoirs out of lack of anything else to do when it felt like his whole mouth had been set on fire. 

He had grown up climbing trees and fighting with his brother and being bullied. He was not the sort of man who did not understand pain, either receiving or delivering it. And yet nothing he had never done had felt like someone pouring acid in his mouth that raced across the inside of his cheek and across his face. He forgot all other part parts of his body and felt tears welling along with blood, and soon all his could feel in his mouth was agony and copper and something flat and solid between his molars on his right side. 

A razor blade. Someone had put a knife in his food when he wasn't looking and now the blade was in his mouth. It was a common fear tactic. Prisoners pretend-played with their food to check. He had become complacent and summarily punished. 

Along with the pain surged white-hot adrenaline and in it familiar rage. 

A person dared to challenge him. Some slime snuck in an attack. Some coward could not even look at his face and challenge him. They slunk behind corridors and hoped he cut his own tongue off. 

He moved his tongue away and bit down on the piece of flat metal, and then with a grunt tightened every muscle in his body. 

He had stood in front of angry executives and faced down the furious public and scrambled and fought and clawed for every success he had ever managed. No rat-infested prison gang middle manager was going to see his fear. 

Only adrenaline kept the pain from staggering him. It was dizzying and intense, and vibrated down the line of his neck, and he maneuvered the sharp thing in his mouth as he half-swallowed, half choked-down blood welling in his mouth. 

They must have been looking at him. He could not have looked good, face flushed. A bead of sweat dripped down his neck. But he would not fall. He would not scream, he would not crumble, and he would not give in. Nothing about this hellhole had ever broken him or frightened him and a piece of metal he could hide in his fist would not start that. It was only lucky that he had gone from the cafeteria to his bunk enough times that his feet knew the way. His sight was blurry, and his head pounded, but he felt metal between his teeth, and he felt like every other time another person had tried to hold him back. George Frederick before the merger that crushed them in the market. That rat Dinwiddie and his pathetic attempt at control. Arnold's betrayal that had dragged him into his slum. 

He had some ideas about who might have done this to him, and only the thought of Lafayette beating them bloody kept him standing. His hands found the metal sink and took his weight. With a shaking, sweat-soaked hand he slid the blade from his mouth and put it, completely red, on the sink, and then he spat a bucket of blood into the sink, saw red and more red and more red until he felt like he could pour some of the foul water from the prison tap from his mouth and the water became pink. 

His clothes were soaked with sweat. His whole body shook. He reached into himself and grew the pilot light of his rage within him. At first he had only wanted to take control out of the prison for something to do, and because he enjoyed the process of it. It was a business decision. There were networking opportunities. But once a man put a razor blade in his mouth and made him spit blood into a sink, there were more factors that had come into play. 

Lafayette's bunk was cold under his back. Washington did not remember falling onto the bed, but he had, and the energy to move from was nowhere to be found. He had to remain conscious, though. They might be watching, to come and finish him off. He had to stay awake and stare at the bottom of his bed and imagine in every gruesome detail what he would do the organization that caused him this kind of agony. 

More blood. He needed to spit. He needed water. What he actually needed was a doctor, and a moment to himself, but that was impossible. He could never seem so weak. This would be the beginning of the threats against him. To bow now would have been unimaginable. What he would do instead was seem imperturbable and impassible. He had zero confidence in the prison medical staff, anyway. 

He reached up and dug his fingers into the bottom of his bunk and felt the new pain ratchet through his fingers. It was different than the cuts inside his mouth, less focused, radiating down his wrists and through his forearms. It distracted him from the blood welling in his mouth. He thought of those old boredom-bonfires him and Lawrence used to make. Once, he’d tripped and fell into some of the burned-out logs before they were properly cool, and the palms of his hands had gotten burned enough that his mother had taken him to the hospital, gotten him patched up, and then thwacked him with a slipper enough times that he was distracted from the pain of his hands. He hadn’t said a word the whole time. Lawrence had been proud, and patted him on the shoulder. 

_All anyone ever does with a person who’s scared is abuse them,_ Lawrence had said. He knew. He knew what to do with people who were scared, and he knew exactly how he would never, ever be treated. 

Oddly, he thought of Hamilton. There was a man that would have gone to the death pretending he wasn’t terrified of himself and the world around him. Washington always knew with him. Washington could see past the walls and know that all-consuming fear immediately. Hamilton, too, would have never looked in pain, or gone to the doctor, or cried out. In some magnificent way, they had always been kindred spirits. 

He sat up. The world spun, blurred out, and then reformed in the various shades of gray of his cell. The floor was cold under his feet. They might be watching, outside his cell. They could be studying him to see how he reacted, if he was afraid, if he bowed. It was at times like this that he had to think more than ever about the steps that he took. The sink would hold his weight without it appearing too much so. The sink was red again, and he felt the swell of nausea in the base of his stomach from the overwhelming taste of blood. It was good that there was nothing in his stomach to vomit. He could stand here for a little while, he thought. He could alternate his weight between his arms and his legs, and if he did so he could remain standing for longer than otherwise. He would have to be standing for as long as he could manage. The burn in his arms and legs and the dizzy, half-conscious blur of his brain mixed with the pain in his mouth that vibrated up the side of his face. 

Lawrence had liked to test him. Once, when he’d been an impulsive child who tended to get in trouble by running his mouth, they had been building a snow fort. Everything had been white, and they were home from school, and a teenage Lawrence had shown up with some child-impossible architecture for their fort. They worked for hours on it, and when Washington had looked up, sweat-slick and panting with effort, Lawrence was sitting in the snow grinning at him, drinking hot cocoa. 

_“I just wanted to see how much you wanted us to have the best fort,” Lawrence said._

_“I thought it was supposed to be a team project,” he’d said, and pouted. Lawrence had laughed._

_“Sure it is. I’m supervising. And if it looks good, then you get hot cocoa. Because you were working hard even you didn’t know if anyone was watching. People are always watching, George. Trying to find out if you’re a lazy ass.”_

They must have been watching now. Watching him shiver and shake and refuse to pass out. Watching him spit blood into the sink and stare at himself in the scratched plastic mirror. They would look at him and see that he could not be broken, that he did not cry, that he was fearless and powerful and unbreakable. He moved from the sink to Lafayette’s bed and to the sink and the bed, each time he felt worse. He had hours until dinner to recover. 

He felt the stares all over him when he appeared for dinner. He knew how he looked: bored. Waiting in line was boring. Here he was, and nothing had happened. His mouth throbbed, sure. Every twitch made his face hurt. But that was irrelevant. What was important was to seem above it. Unaffected by a razor blade in his food and the slices that he felt along the inside of his mouth. Invincible and unweakened by such low attacks. He had washed his face and changed into a spare, secret sect of clothes which hadn’t been soaked in sweat. 

The murmurs on the back of his neck felt sweet like victory. 

_“Damn, George,” Lawrence used to say, laughing, “If you ever learn to stop being a fucking dipshit, you’re gonna run the world one day.”_

_“You think so?” He’d asked. Running the world sounded good._

_“Think so?” Laurence tossed him a beer. He was underage, but he was going to run the world. “I know you, and I know so.”_

** 

It was the sort of event that people noticed. Someone must have indicated that he was a threat, and therefore they had taken action against him. It must have been because of Armistead’s books. It would have been worse, he was sure, if it was about the snack bars. This had only been a warning - a shot across his brow, so to speak. He was being warned to keep his head down and stop helping. He was being told, in that way, that his assistance was not required.

Lafayette would have been careful to make sure no one noticed, when he tended to Washington. He spread his blanket over the man and gave him a cup to spit in, and somehow conjured salt to keep the cuts from being infected. There was some entertainment, to the ignorance of his attacker. That they thought such a thing could keep him down meant they knew absolutely nothing about him, and despite the agony that was eating for the next little while, it was an interesting lesson to learn. 

Armistead got his books, though. Armistead studied on one side of the library while he read on the other side. He never saw Armistead talking to Lafayette, and yet without fail Lafayette would show up at night with a _Jamie says we should be careful with_ or _Jamie noticed it might be good to go after_. At these times he felt that momentary surge of pride, that he had acquired such talent. He squelched it. He had nothing until had the prison. 

One day Lafayette said _Jamie found out who cut your mouth_. A middle manager of one of the white supremacist gangs, who hadn’t liked that one black person had provided another black person with the means to continue his education. It wasn’t surprising, but even so it inflamed the pilot light of rage in his stomach. He didn’t forget. These things needed time, but he was patient, and he never ran out of anger. 

There were a few others, through Armistead and Lafayette. A man needed back-to-school supplies for his daughter. Another had been given a complicated legal document to fill out regarding a child and could barely read it. Washington sat next to him for three hours and explained concepts like _in absentia_. He allowed himself to be seen as smart. They often said to him _shit you didn’t cry or scream at all_ and he shrugged. They said _holy shit you’re a fuckin genius and don’t give an inch._ He didn’t smile. He remembered the man who had cut the inside of his mouth and paid more attention to what he ate. He avoided some attacks, picked knives out of his food, checked his bed for anything dangerous. He looked inside his shoes. 

it was almost comically like being a beginner executive. He remembered those backstabs - figurative, while these were going to be literal, perhaps - and how much the ones he hadn’t caught had hurt. He remembered the gleaming eyes, which were the same. He remembered allies who pretended to be allies that were quite ready to abandon him at first notice. He remembered the pitiful worms who thought there might a glow he could provide warmth with. 

He had already done quite a bit of this. In some ways it was harder than he remembered, but most it was familiar ground. The only issue was that he had to avoid being murdered, which threw an admittedly challenging wrench into the plan. 

But he allowed himself to slowly become something. And once he became something, there were other questions to answer. 

When did he want to display Lafayette? That was something he had began to muse on more. He still thought it might be a good idea to keep the thing a secret for a little while longer. Lafayette made up a huge piece of his power, and his enemies not know the thing existed presented an obvious benefit. He knew that Lafayette wanted to brag about their alliance - wanted to brag about him, wanted to sing his praise, wanted to announce that he had been worthy of Washington’s attentions. 

He had promised Lafayette that there would be a time. He just needed the right opportunity to release his new favorite attack dog. Lafayette was well-trained, but he was excitable, like dogs could be. 

One day Lafayette nearly broke their charade by sitting next to him. He’d been more careful now, and those who disliked him had retreated to consider new ways to have him murdered or maimed. Lafayette sitting down next to him, as if they were friends, was not an acceptable turn of events. True, they lived together, and he was sure that was not unnoticed. But that was enough time to spend with another man you didn’t care about. 

He ignored the man even as he softly steamed inside. Was this the moment that Lafayette revealed himself as some deep plant, and was now sufficiently ready to destroy him? Was this the moment he saw how completely he’d been tricked? Or was Lafayette suddenly strong-armed? Or worse - clumsy? 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lafayette looked his regular cheery self, his white smile bright against dark skin. He even made a significant effort to look to enjoy the dinner they were fed. Lafayette didn’t talk to him, or look at him at all. He pretended like it was not a big deal to sit next to someone like him, someone who’s risk and stock were rising. It was very, very unlike a person he had come to put some trust in. 

Perhaps Lafayette wished to tell him something and couldn’t. Perhaps there was some dreadful emergency upcoming, that Lafayette had made the actual decision to run so close to blowing their cover. Perhaps what Lafayette wanted - no, needed - was his attention, and he needed it now, and as quick as he could. 

Lafayette ate in a hurry and left without looking at him. He made some small talk with a few other people, but at no point did he even make a semblance of eye contact. It was very strange indeed, and so much so that Washington had to hold back to urge to track the man with his eyes. He went back to eating and tried to pull his head back to watching the dinner crowd, but he couldn’t. Now that he’d considered Lafayette might’ve needed him, it was impossible to shake the thought. 

Was the thing Lafayette wished to tell him not a secret? Each question beget another question, until he had come up with a card pyramid of concerns and no breeze to knock them over. 

It would not be unusual for him to go to the library. At least it would be a better place to think, and he would see if Lafayette had left him something out of order. He ate slowly, and then he watched for a while, trying to fend off the anxiety. Then, completely boredly, he got up, dumped his tray, and walked out of the cafeteria, cataloguing the eyes on him. He walked down the hallway to the library and walked within the short stacks, trying to unravel the message. He thought about going back to his bunk to see if something was there, and in frustration he dumped himself into his usual chair and grabbed _The Secret History of the Mongols_ to try and calm the growing anger he could feel rising. 

He ran his hands over the worn cover of the book. It was one of the few he owned rather than the library, and thinking about the book and the Mongol empire brought him calm. Taking a breath, he opened again to the first page to try and calm himself. His notes fit neatly into the margins. He had highlighted important sentences. He wished to take the book back to his bunk to read, but it was not so bad to have it here --- 

\--- in the library --- 

\----- it was _his_ book. 

He sucked in a gasp. He would have not taken the book from his bunk. Only person would be touching his things and also leaving them in good condition. A person might take this book if they wanted his attention without anyone realizing it, because very few people paid attention to what he read --- 

He flipped through the pages, quicker this time, forcing the boredom to show on his face despite the uptick of his heartbeat. There, in between the pages, was a scrawled note in unfamiliar handwriting. 

_we were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle and what rough beast its hour come round at last. things_

He knew the words. He read them over and over, trying to place them in his head, pretending that the paper was his bookmark and flipping the pages that he wasn’t reading. He put the paper in the book, snapped it shut, and folded it under his arm as he pretended calm. It was harder, when he had not yet undone the puzzle. 

Lafayette was not in their bunk. He opened the book again and stared at the scrap. It was a poem, he was sure. But which one? 

Then, in a flash, he knew. 

“Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,” he whispered to himself, and then stuffed the scrap of paper into his mouth to discard it as safely as possible. What did it mean, that Lafayette had secretly left him a chunk of _Things Fall Apart_? Some change was coming, Lafayette wanted to tip him off to, and he was too scared to say anything even in their bunk. Something huge and dramatic. _Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed everywhere._

A riot. 

It must have been a riot. 

Washington had never been in a riot before. He expected, at some point, to be in one. He would have preferred it be later in his tenure, but one did not always have complete control over such circumstances. Lafayette had been right, though. It was the sort of event that one needed as much time as they could to plan for. That would be starting with how he could best protect himself and his books. And secondly, while not ideal, it did present a number of unique opportunities. 

“Surely,” he murmured to himself, “Some revelation is at hand.”

***

There were two strange days. He felt more and more confident about his analysis of Lafayette’s note, for the prison took on an unusual tension that nearly gave itself away. He might have guessed a riot but he would have felt a lot worse about the feeling, had such a hint not been given. No one would come out and tell him such a thing, of course. If anything, they wished to catch him unprepared. There were other purposes to starting a riot, of course, but picking off the unprepared that one considered a threat was an obvious plus.

The other curious thing about the days was that Lafayette made an active effort to ignore him. He arrived back to their bunk late, and woke early, and sat far for meals and stood distant for role call. It sat uneasy in Washington’s stomach, but there was nothing he could do with it at this point. He had to trust that Lafayette had his best interests in mind, and if not, was at least persuaded to stay at his side if only for the promise of more contact. 

His only hint that this was part of some plan he could not be told was that he had been awake one night when Lafayette came back. 

“Surely,” he’d said, in the idle, distant way that men in prison perfected when they wanted to seem meaningless, “The second coming is at hand.” 

“Twenty centuries of stony sleep,” Lafayette had said, and yawned, and disappeared into his bunk. 

Though, a part of him said, if there was going to be a time that Lafayette was going to rebel and cause some sort of grander damage to him and his cause, this would be the time. He would merely have to make accommodations for both options. He was accustomed to planning for either half of the coin landing up. 

The next day he was woken by screaming men and sirens. He caught himself before he fell out of his bed, but it was a close thing. He had never been so fully and completely awake before, or so disconcerted by a cacophony. He reached out for the plans in his head and dragged them back, despite the effort of the deafening noise to distract him. 

Not just sirens and men screaming, but the sound of flesh on flesh, and violence. Coming closer, at that. 

An opportunity to rid themselves of him, for sure. He flattered himself for a moment or two to think that the riot was because and for him, and suppressed the smile at the thought. 

This was all one moment. 

The next moment he looked over and slid himself out of bed, where Lafayette was standing, obviously completely prepared for this event. He grinned at Washington and then glanced down the hallway at the nearing sound of men and improvised weapons, including but not limited to fists.

“We’re both going to be murdered pretty soon,” Lafayette shouted above the din. Washington rolled his eyes, and Lafayette laughed and reached forward, plucking his prison uniform shirt in familiar affection. Against his will there was a warm coil of relief, that his man looked to be so back at his side. 

“We should go,” he shouted back, and when he went to the cell door, it was open. 

“Definitely murdered,” Lafayette confirmed, and then he was out the door. Washington turned to his bed, reached between the mattress and his bedframe for a length of wire he kept, and secured it to him by puncturing the fabric and securing some of it within the area of the pants that held his waistband. He took _The Secret History of the Mongols_ under his his arm. Then he was gone too, quick on Lafayette’s heels and trying to both take in the chaos that surrounded them, keep an eye on Lafayette, and keep all his thoughts straight. There were certainly all kinds of corporate emergencies - stock market crashes and mass-firings and board rage and undiscovered regulations - but he had never been required to handle them while someone banged an industrial kitchen’s worth of pans directly above his head. 

Lafayette looked over his shoulder to make sure Washington was there, and then picked up the pace. He followed. _Trust,_ he thought in his head. If nothing else: positive rewards. It was useless to pray, but nonetheless he hoped knowing it was irrational that he was not about to be murdered in some other gruesome way unrelated to the sound of a prison gang tearing apart his bunk looking for something. 

He caught up to the other man. “Look harmless for the guards,” Lafayette said, and they stood quickly to the side to avoid to avoid the heavily armed prison guards coming in their direction. The guards took one look at them and their held up arms, fingered their batons, and then moved down the hallway. 

“Where are we going?” he asked, because Lafayette took them through the bare, sprawling hallways with the intent of having a destination. Every further step made the skin on his neck prickle harder. He tried to force the rationality of the situation on himself, tried to ignore what he could easily identify as fear in his stomach, tried to not imagine some group or gang at the end of this path, which was surprisingly empty. The acrid smell of smoke met his nose. He forced himself to think about anything but being burned alive. 

Lafayette looked over his shoulder at him. Washington concentrated on silencing his group of awry thoughts, which had admittedly grown quite substantial in the din. He glanced around their hallway and tried to listen for other sounds other than the screaming alarm. Were they in some kind of basement? Doors he was unfamiliar with had been broken open or hadn’t been properly closed. He seemed to be off the map of the prison in his head. He felt the beginnings of nausea churn in his stomach and creep up his chest. 

“Things fall apart,” Lafayette said, and there was the familiar gleam in his eye, understatedly vicious, “The center cannot hold.” 

The singsong nature of it scraped further up his intuition. The sprinklers came on, and within moments they were both soaked. He shivered and cursed under his breath and knew just the men who’d dragged him into this and considered, for a few moments, exactly what he was going to do to them when he was free. 

Assuming he was not about to be gruesomely murdered. He heard the noise of chaos behind him.

“Enough Yeats!” He shouted, and then he reached out and grabbed Lafayette’s arm, startling the man. “Am I about to be murdered?” 

Lafayette looked at where Washington’s hand was wrapped around his forearm and then over his shoulder. “Maybe by them,” he said, although some of the confidence had evaporated, and there was now a great bit of confusion working it’s way over his face. 

“By you.” 

“By me?” 

It was at this exact moment that Washington realized he had erred. The catastrophe was too loud for him to forget it entirely, but his senses were momentarily overwhelmed by the confusion that flickered over Lafayette’s face, followed very quickly by hurt. For a second the man paused in his cheeriness, and a frown pulled the corners of his lips down. He seemed to momentarily lose his train of thought. 

Washington thought, for several terrible moments, that this would be the end - that Lafayette, as employees often did, felt very sour over some display that they were not trusted. That they would have done less, if they know that their boss didn’t wholly think them important and valuable. That perhaps it was time to find some other boss that would like them more. And to lose Lafayette, especially at this very moment, was a catastrophic possibility. He threw curses against the inside of his skull and opened his mouth to try to diffuse the situation. 

Lafayette was having none of it. Lafayette’s frowned went flat, and his eyes went very hard, and there was something quite firm and resolute in his expression now. He stood up straight, seemingly distant from danger nearing them as well as the general anarchy of the prison, and nodded to what must have been himself. 

“I would never kill you,” he said, with more determination than spite, “In fact. You think I would?” 

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Washington said, very quickly. 

“I will make sure you never think I will again,” Lafayette said, and he seemed to take his bearings, and then the familiar grin settled on his face. It would have been impossible to completely encompass Washington’s relief at the thing. He could, of course, still be killed, or be lead into a trap, or something of that such. But if Lafayette had not done so now --

“I have just the thing,” Lafayette said, and went quickly to a nearby intersection, gesturing Washington to follow. “That you will like. I promise you’ll like it. I won’t give you any more reasons to doubt.” 

“I would never doubt you,” Washington said to the back of his head, and tried to wrap his mind back again this response. Was Lafayette’s respond to Washington’s doubts to work harder to be trusted? It seemed wild that a man could be so useful or loyal. And that the man was his…. “There’s so much chaos, is all.” 

“Sure,” Lafayette said, a little snidely, just enough so that Washington knew he was not going to be able to wriggle out of the situation. But it was done, and if Lafayette was truly looking to prove himself even more in the face of Washington’s double, than that was not something he was going to fight against. 

They exited the prison, dodging the guards and inmates beating each other up, and the items that were being ruined, and the bits of concrete that were being smashed out of the building. Lafayette seemed inured to the chaos of the riot. Across the basketball court, the vast majority of the attention of everyone else seemed to be related to a gaping hole in the barbed wire, where prisoners in outfits were streaming forth, followed by prison guards and police. A faint fog hung over the area, and Washington’s nose stung. 

“Should we?” Lafayette asked. 

It was extraordinarily tempting to be out of this piece of shit institution. He was very much in shape and could probably beat out most of the prison guards and a decent number of the police. He could handle anyone short of a man with a taser or a gun. And outside the fence was his place - whiskey, a decent salad, good clothes, his leather shoes. His couch, and his computer, and his friends, and his apartment. 

But. 

But he would be a fugitive. The sort of desperate thing he couldn’t imagine. An exile. And all the things he had worked for would be given to someone else, even more than they were now. 

“No,” he said, and let the sigh escape him, “We shouldn’t.” 

“Then let’s keep going,” Lafayette continued, without another beat, and clung close to the prison wall, glancing behind him to make sure Washington was still following. Washington did not spend that much time in this area of the prison grounds - mostly ragged weeds and where his esteemed compatriots went to ride out whatever new drug they had cooked up in a toilet. So he was not completely surprised when Lafayette held up a hand to stop, and in front of him was an unfamiliar storage shed, poorly constructed out of corrugated sheet metal. From a distance it looked like another jutting lump of the prison, though here it was barely more than four walls and a roof and a padlock, nearly leaning against the wall of the prison. 

Lafayette held up a finger, as if Washington was prone to shouting. He saw the glint of the shiv appear in Lafayette’s hand, and reached down for the wire that he had stored in his waistband. He’d thought a lot about what would be a good weapon to carry. Blood was inconvenient and could be matched to him, and despite the availability of a decent shiv of any time, the process was brutal and disgusting. He was a man of more refined values. It had not been so easy to find a wire, given that they weren’t allowed shoelaces. But you could find anything you wanted in a prison, if you tried. There was even the faintest air of deniability to it, if someone was suspicious. 

Lafayette steadied himself behind one of the sheet metal walls, and then took two steps forward and charged against it as hard as he could. The thing made a grinding noise and moved a few inches, and the person inside of it cursed quite loudly. He pulled back towards the prison wall and let Lafayette hover close to the corner near the door of the shed. He heard the door rattling and what was likely a lock being handled, and then when the door opened Lafayette spring from the corner. Then he heard the sound of a body hitting the back wall of the shack and a horrific gurgle, and the thuds of a struggle. The shed rattled again. 

What he should have done was disappear. He could melt back into the chaos that, based on his ear, sounded like it was just beginning to die down. No one would have ever known that he was back here, listening to Lafayette stab someone and the wet sound of the man dying. It was, of course, best to not be associated that that kind of thing. But he had already violated Lafayette’s trust, and if this was to be his reward, then he would have to receive it. He knew a little bit about how they punished a prison murder, and he had enough confidence that he could escape from the charge. It was true that he had not actually, technically, been involved. 

He took a breath to steady himself and stepped inside. Against the back wall of the shed he saw Lafayette’s back, and behind him the back of a head, dark with tattoo ink. He could see and hear the man struggling as he rattled against the metal, although the struggle was slowing. He closed the door to the shack and put the padlock back on, though he left it unlocked. 

The man fell in a smear of blood. As if experienced, Lafayette bent down to pick the tape off the shiv which was still embedded in the back of the man’s neck. 

“I wouldn’t want him to bother you anymore,” Lafayette said, his smile even broader. The tape on the blade came off, and he wrapped it around his hand, perhaps storage until it could be more safely discarded.

Washington took in the shack for a few moments. It was a veritable paradise aside from an obvious lack of insulation: there were two bags on the floor (plastic!) the first nearly overflowing with illicit snacks, and the second less full, holding another pair of shoes and maybe other useful items like a spare toothbrush or an extra pair of underwear. A half-rotted, but still possibly soft, armchair was set in a corner. Next the man, and now Washington saw the tattoos on his head crept down his back and had the unspectacular theme of white supremacy. They were crude, dark, and ugly. It was not the sort of person often mourned about. 

Washington knew the rush. He knew the thrill of victory and the delicious sense of conquering and the magnificent, wonderful feeling of coming out on top in one way or the other. He had bought companies who begged to be under his umbrella. He had litigated others into non-existence. He had poached the employees he wanted and won the grants and contracts he desired.

He was not surprised that the murder of someone who would have very much enjoyed him dead felt the same. This was another thing who seeked to crush him - a marked-up enemy of a man seeping blood into the dirt. And here he was, unblemished by it, and one more enemy removed from his way. It was the sort of man who would try very hard to keep him from getting power, and now he had been very succinctly and quite permanently removed from that struggle. 

He let the hint of a smile curl onto the corner of his lip. Lafayette grinned back at him, white teeth bright against dark skin, even in the low light of the shack. Familiar violent lit his eyes as he ripped off a piece of his own outfit and carefully rewrapped the shiv. 

“You know he was part of it,” Lafayette said, gazing at the corpse, “The first one. To cut your mouth open. I wished I could help, but I know you wouldn't have wanted me to. But I was proud to see how you just left. I knew I had made a good choice when I saw that. Swore to myself I’d never disappoint someone so amazing.” 

“I won’t doubt you again,” Washington said, letting his eyes trail up and down the strong body of his man. “I shouldn’t have doubted you, and I apologize very sincerely. I’ll reward you for this, but now I think we should go.” He turned to look at the shack door. That he could think without the blaring alarm meant that there was roll call he would be expected to show up for somewhere. Good behavior was very important. No guard would have seen him anywhere near the riots, after all. He would be considered a decent inmate. It was sad, however, that they didn’t have the time or effort to bury the corpse, and that when it started to stink the shack would be discovered and broken down. The dead man had found a nice little hideaway.

What Washington would have done for privacy. 

“I’ll make sure you never doubt me,” Lafayette said, and with such devotion and affection that Washington looked over at him and stroked his cheek, then even took a step back and gave him a chaste kiss. 

They clung to the side of the wall and found the lineup without much trouble at all, sticking onto the back and then slipping into the mass. Washington scanned through the crowd and saw curious eyes on him, wondering. They would have seen him and Lafayette appear together. Eventually the bloating, stinking corpse would be found. There would be rumors. 

It was not as predicted, but it would be fine. Let them put the puzzle pieces together. Let them know that Lafayette was his man. Let them know that between the two of them, they could find some secret hideaway and murder an enemy, and then let the prison guards think they were well-behaved. 

Lafayette was looking dutifully away and bored. Washington wrapped one arm around him and squeezed his opposite shoulder. Lafayette looked directly at him and winked.

**

Eventually, they were finally allowed to go back to their bunks, and they had all been counted and promised to be fed less, as if the food was something they could miss. It was nearly night. The emergency lights were still on, and everything was red-lit and hazy. He hopped onto his bunk. Lafayette had tossed off his shirt, and in the atmosphere he looked like some spirit of blood summoned from hell. Washington was not superstitious, but to see his man look so good was spectacular.

“Lafayette,” he said, and the man’s gazed snap to him, “Come here.” 

Lafayette could only lie half-on him on the top bunk, owing to the ceiling and the size of the bed. But nonetheless the man followed unquestioningly, wedging himself there. 

“You did well for me today, even when I doubted you,” he said, and settled up on elbow so Lafayette had some space next to him, “You were keeping your distance from me so you could escape to me during the riot.” 

“Yes, sir,” Lafayette said, “Doing more research on the shed, too, and who lived there. I was going to save that for some other time, but I wanted you to know how much I want to further your cause.” 

“So much that you’d take such steps.” _Kill for me._

“That’s right,” Lafayette said, and nodded. 

“I promised you more when we did more,” Washington replied, settling himself more comfortably on his one elbow, and then reaching down to the waistband of his pants. The wire went under his mattress, in case he needed it later. He pushed the waistband down, and even in the strange lighting he could see Lafayette’s eyes widen and his mouth began to hang open. Wondering, perhaps. 

“Have I done enough?” Lafayette asked, and then reached, tenuously, as if to be amazed at the gift he had gotten. 

“All that and more,” Washington said, and he gave Lafayette’s shoulder a little push. Comprehension dawned slowly, but when it did he scrambled down the bed, arranging himself between Washington’s legs and reaching worshipfully for the band of his briefs. Every touch was tender, as Lafayette brought the pads of his fingers down the shaft of Washington’s cock with the most wonderful gentleness. 

His eyes fluttered closed and he let his head fall back on his pillow. The warmth would be better if he thought of it without being trapped in this shit place. He would imagine his couch instead, and his penthouse, the one with the floor-to-ceiling windows on the sixty-eighth floor. It was too far up for anyone to actually look in, but Lafayette would like the exhibitionism of it. They would drink brandy and go out for dinner beforehand and eat oysters. 

Lafayette’s fingers were warm and gentle, brushing up and down his length with tender care. It was unfamiliar in so many ways. He did not usually prefer so much affection, but it definitely grew the heat in his stomach perfectly well, turned his thoughts dark with lust. It would better to imagine them in his apartment, lit softly by the city and his dimmed ceiling lights. Lafayette’s knees protected by carpet as the man’s tongue gave him a few tender, disbelieving licks, as if he might pull away. Then more, from the tip to the root, every bit as worshipful as his murder to impress, or his recruitment of a spy, or his stealing of candy. 

They would have to work that day. Lafayette would work for him, of course. He knew just how to spin it: that he had done his time, and now he understood about recidivism, and he was going to hire a certain number of ex-cons because of their skills and critical thinking and social skills. It would be a big deal. He would be celebrated. He would hire Lafayette and Armistead and other people who proved to him that they could be loyal. 

At work they would have talked about mergers and acquisitions and poaching and growing the company. They would talk in his office, all dark wood, with all his books, and his very comfortable chair. He would put off all his other meetings. Lafayette’s mouth was hot and eager and completely devoted to him. Lafayette's lips travelled up and down with the most magnificent heat. Lafayette’s hands stroked his thighs, as if to express further all the things he couldn’t say with a person’s cock in your mouth. 

Washington wondered what those things would be. _I would do anything for you,_ maybe. Or _this is all I want_ or _I just want to be the best for you_. In his head they sounded wonderful. Better, complemented with the wet sounds that Lafayette made between his legs, and then somehow even further improved as Lafayette pressed him deep into his mouth, till he felt the tight heat of his throat and the soft noise of a suppressed gag. 

He reached downwards, finding Lafayette’s head in his curls. Took hold as much he could and pressed on him, until he thought he could get no deeper into that delicious mouth. Lifted his hips even then, and took more, and it was spectacular, to imagine them doing just this in his penthouse. Of course there would still be rewards, when they were in reality, and Lafayette was successful for him. He thought about what it would be like to secure new contracts or clients with him. 

They would do very well together, he thought. Lafayette would make a good executive VP. Maybe he’d even let Lafayette go by Lafayette even though he was sure that wasn’t the man’s real name. It was a bright and beautiful future, he thought, more distantly now now that his blood roared hot and his heart was pounding and everything felt tight like coiled wire. One, two, three more thrusts and he came, grunting as the sense of it overwhelmed him, letting the heat of Lafayette’s mouth consume him further, hot and perfect against his sensitive skin, every humid breath a caress in and of itself. 

Lafayette so obediently kept his mouth on him. He felt the swallow in the man’s throat. 

He opened his eyes and saw the dull grey ceiling of the prison. The concrete looked dull in the restored prison lighting, grey and soulless. The bed itched under his back, uncomfortable mattress leaving aches he couldn’t stretch out. The clothes were coarse on his skin. But Lafayette was there, still waiting. 

“Come here,” he said, and Lafayette slid up the bed and lay next to him, wiping a bit of white from the corner of his mouth. Washington reached down and slipped his hands into the other man’s briefs, stroking the erection he felt there. “There will be a power vacuum. We should think of the best way to acquire the talent that we need, and make sure we have adequate resources to move forward with whatever plans we like. We should also look into the best way to present ourselves. Tell me what you think.”


End file.
